Who Could Foresee Another COVID-19 Surge?
???As expected by those who read my posts, coronavirus is surging again, and some places have seen the need to put mitigations back in place, even as a judge decided to strike down nationwide mitigation orders.?
???It’s true that deaths attributed to COVID-19 remain low—about 425 people die from it every day—as the U.S. approaches the million-deaths milestone. (For the history-minded, that’s roughly twice as many dead Americans as died in combat for all of World War II, and in less time.)?
???The COVID-19 surge (the 14-day positivity average rising 47% from a week earlier) remains troubling, even with the percentage of coronavirus deaths trending down, because a small percentage of fatalities in a large population can mean a lot of deaths.?
???For example, if few people—let’s say 1,000 to make the math easier—caught an illness that killed 1% of them, 10 people would die. Yet if 10,000 people caught an illness that was fatal 0.5% of the time (half the prior example’s fatality rate), 50 people die. Lower death rates in a larger population of infected people can kill more people.?
???Now, I chose those numbers just to illustrate the point, but the concept is valid and explains health professionals’ and other leaders’ concerns about reducing efforts to contain or mitigate the “less deadly” omicron variant.?
???On Monday, Philadelphia became the first major U.S. city to restore indoor mask requirements. Meanwhile, many college campuses, especially in the Northeast, have responded to surging numbers by restoring mitigations. They include American University, Bowdoin College, Columbia University, Drexel University, Johns Hopkins University (which also has one of the best dashboards for COVID-19 data), Howard University, La Salle University, Rice University, St. Joseph’s University, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, University of Connecticut, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester and George Washington University. A few have returned to online classes. Some have canceled campus events.?
???Let’s all be mindful of each other, and if you want to keep your mask on, and test regularly, there’s good reason to stay the course.?
???Amanda Schleede is founder and CEO of Attend Safe, which helps people to attend life with sensible safety protocols. Visit AttendSafe online at AttendSafe.com.